Ransom

ISIS continues waging war according to its own savage rules and no nation, it seems, is immune. As Jane Onyanga-Omara of USA Today reports:

A video purporting to show the Islamic State group threatening to kill two Japanese hostages unless they get a $200 million ransom in the next 72 hours was posted online Tuesday.

The video shows a black-clad, masked British-accented man standing between two hostages in orange jumpsuits who are identified in captions as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa.

The video, called A message to the government and people of Japan, has been identified as being made by the Islamic State group's al-Furqan media arm and was posted on militant websites associated with the extremist group.

There is no reason to suspect that ISIS will not carry out the threat since it

… has beheaded and shot dead hundreds of captives — mainly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers — during its sweep across the two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos. It also holds British photojournalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in other extremist propaganda videos, and a 26-year-old American woman captured last year in Syria while working for aid groups. U.S. officials have asked that the woman not be identified out of fears for her safety.

And:

Last week, the group released a video purporting to show a child executing two men accused of being Russian spies who tried to infiltrate the militant organization in Syria.

Time magazine is reporting that during an interview about the deal to trade Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo, when "[a]sked whether the Taliban would be inspired by the exchange to kidnap others, a commander laughed.